​Migration

By Carolyn Cheng ’24

still
standing at the crosswalk letting the wind frost
all over me,

a constellation of birds flap south
and in a cacophony of motion there is silence
still
 
in this death of a season, the human
eyes of a German shepherd greet me at the porch,
and a small warmth stretches from the dawn
and touches the fingertips of a child.
 
still
a teenager in the cold,
my hands are the same as his,
constants to a winged movement,
monument to small town finding comfort in
stillness,
unburying and unfolding
itself letting
the frost all over me reach
the sun and all her stars to God,
I'm alive, but the whole place is quiet and
 
the light blinks white and the wind crosses the street.
 
*The italicized line is borrowed from the song "Still" by Noah Kahan.